Train of the Dead
by Alastair A. Dorianscroft
Summary: There's something in the subway... London is exactly the same has it always has been, busy. But what's this about missing people? And why does the time of day change almost randomly? As The Doctor prepares to save Earth once again he must face off against one of his oldest enemies... Starring the Eleventh Doctor as played by Matt Smith in BBC's hit series Doctor Who.


**TRAIN OF THE DEAD**

Lawrence Fisher stepped onto the train. He had been waiting at the station for 14 minutes and 37 seconds, he liked to keep count of things like that. The train doors opened inwards as if to welcome him in, and he scanned his Oyster card into the machine. Strange, he thought, the scanner wasn't working. The train doors closed behind him and it lurched forward, nearly knocking him off-balance."I wonder what's wrong with the machine?"He quietly said aloud to himself, he'd have to ask someone. He looked around for the nearest person, but there was no one onboard. This was even stranger, seeing as it was mid-afternoon and the station had been, come to think of it, the station had been empty too, why hadn't he noticed that? He sat down on the nearest seat and pulled out his mobile phone, the battery was dead, this was not possible, thought Lawrence, as it had been fully charged only moments before. Lawrence looked around and noticed a strange, green flickering light coming from the door down the far end of the carriage. He hoisted himself out of his seat and slowly walked down towards it. He reached the door and opened it, what he saw made him scream. A cold metal hand grabbed his throat and his windpipe was crushed instantly, he was dead before he hit the floor.

A heavy rasping noise filled the air as a blue police box appeared in the middle of the street. A man stepped out, his bowtie whipped around in the wind, somehow still connected to his chest. He brushed his brown hair out of his face, and his hazel eyes darted around, taking in the environment. With a slight spring in his step he walked to the nearest door and opened it. By the smell of beer and the laughter and cheering that echoed down the corridor he could tell that it was a pub. He walked down the hallway and entered a large room full of cheery red-faced men gathered around a pool table laughing their heads off at what must have been a joke that someone had previously told. The man sat down on a stool and swung himself around to face the bartender, a small red-headed man with a bushy moustache that almost covered his entire face. "Hello!"He exclaimed brightly "I'm the Doctor!"

"What'll it be sir?" the bartender asked, putting down the glass he had been polishing

"Oh, I don't drink" He laughed "though I don't suppose you have any Marshzipangiac?". The Doctor didn't hear the bartender mutter "Fresh out sir". A sudden cheer erupted from the end of the room, and the soft clink of a ball sinking into one of the pockets could just be heard over the din. The Doctor turned and headed over to the other side of the bar, standing on his tiptoes to see over the slightly drunken men leaning over the table. "You nearly won Ken!", one of the men yelled, The Doctor turned to face the man that had just been spoken to. Ken's face looked thunderous as he watched his opponent being lifted up and carried over to the bar. The Doctor tapped Ken on the shoulder and he turned to face him."Yeah?" he asked, but before The Doctor could answer he asked "Are you asking about the posters?", he pointed to the back wall. The Doctor followed his finger and saw that there was some sort of strange wallpaper there. As he moved towards it, he saw that it was actually made up of hundreds of missing posters plastered to the wall, "Strange..." The Doctor muttered, every poster said:

 **MISSING**

Last seen: Waterbridge Railway station, Gurchie Park, London

The Doctor looked closer at them, "So many people missing? Did they all vanish in the same place then?". "I don't know do I?" Ken replied , "I know just as much as you do". Yes, thought The Doctor, that was the problem. He walked onwards and was standing at the door when a voice called out, "Where'a you goin" to at this time of night eh?". The Doctor swung on his heel to face one of the men that had previously been gathered around the table. "Night?" The Doctor questioned, for it had been day when he had stepped out of the TARDIS."Yeah" the man replied, "what with it raining and everything?". The Doctor gazed out of one of the windows, sure enough, the moon shone in the sky, barely visible through the torrential rain. "Hmm" The Doctor murmured,"Well, if it's all the same to you I think I'll be leaving now" and with that, he pulled a short, magenta umbrella from out of his coat, and walked through the open door.

T _hrough the slits in the mask that he had been fused to, he could see a man. If you could call it that, the terrible metal horror that stood before him was barely a living creature, let alone a human being. He tried to move his head, but it was as if it was frozen stiff. He could only watch as the thing bent down low over him, and in a terrible screeching electronic voice said " YOU WILL BE UPGRADED". Samuel Livingstone let out his last scream._

The Doctor jogged through the busy London streets, careful not to slip over the sopping wet concrete that was the pavement. There was a post office up ahead, and he opened the door and welcomed the warmth and light. There was a jingle as the door shut behind him, and a finger tapped him on the shoulder. He turned around to see the face of Ken, his black hair plastered to his face."Ken! Hello!" he said loudly, the woman at the register looked up at him. He turned back,"This is my friend Ken everyone!" he announced to the post office in general. Ken started"What are you doing?" he hissed,"No Ken" The Doctor replied jollily, "What are you doing? Why did you follow me?". He looked around, and then sat down in a chair in the corner, next to an old man "Hello!" he said brightly, the old man scooched down four seats, and then promptly left the building. Ken sat down, "Why did you follow me here?" The Doctor asked again, "I, uh, wanted to tell you something" he responded "Yes?" questioned The Doctor,"Can I come with you?" He rushed, he expected The Doctor to be taken aback, but his face brightened "Why of course Ken!" he replied "Seventeen minutes fourteen seconds" He muttered, "Excuse me?" Ken asked "Seventeen minutes fourteen seconds" He said louder "That's how long it took for you to follow me". "Sorry what?" Ken asked "You knew?"

"Oh please, I saw it in your eyes" The Doctor replied casually.

 _Sarah Travers was lost, she had been following the group, she had just accidentally taken another door. Why had she done that? She inwardly slapped herself. It seemed as though every door just led back to the place where she already was, where was she again? Sarah looked up at the sign above the ticket stalls. Waterbridge station? That was in Gurchie park! How had she gotten there so quickly? A sudden wind blew through the station, and she turned around to find that a train had pulled up. "A way out of here at last!" She said. She climbed on to the train and looked around for someone to talk to. But there was no one there, before she could climb out the doors slammed shut and she was thrown from her feet by the force of the train speeding through the station. She stood up and looked around, the carriage somehow looked greener. She turned around and saw that the green light was coming from a door at the end of the carriage. She headed towards it, sliding open the door she screamed. She tried to run, but a silver hand grabbed her hair, it pulled her towards it and with a last scream, the door slammed shut. Sarah was gone._

The Doctor was holding an ice cream, and a dog. He was posing for a photo just beside Cleopatra's Needle. "You know. I've met Cleopatra, and this monument definitely has nothing to do with her, it _actually_ came from the..."The Doctor looked at Ken. "Look Doctor, no offense, but I thought that we would be looking into this missing people thing". "Right, yes! Good job Ken! Off we go!" And with that, he put the dog down, and plopped the ice cream in a little girl's hand. The little girl looked up at him, and then she walked off. The Doctor was half-way down the road by the time Ken caught up with him. "Er... Doctor, where are we going?" He asked "Waterbridge station" he replied promptly, before sliding down a stair rail and taking a map from a stand. He stopped for a bit, for which Ken was grateful, but then turned in a different direction and speed-walked off.

By the time they had reached Gurchie park, both of them were breathless. Reaching into his pocket, The Doctor pulled out some sort of weird stick-thing. "What... Is that?" Ken asked, puffing to get the words out. The Doctor, apparently re-energised turned to him "It's a sonic screwdriver" he said simply, as though it was the most obvious thing in the world. Ken didn't ask any more. The Doctor pushed a button, and stared. "Something's wrong" he said, "It's not working, it should... be... working..." he trailed off. "Unless... Oh, stupid, stupid, stupid!" he turned to Ken, "It's being drained! Something around here is draining the power. And what's the bet that it's in Waterbridge station?".

They headed down the steps and turned right. Walking into a chamber, they could see a maintenance worker up ahead, he was patrolling the ticket stalls when he saw them. "Hey!" he shouted "You're not supposed to be in here!", The Doctor ran up to him and pulled a wallet out of his coat. "We're, whatever it says here" he said, rather lamely, the man looked at the wallet being thrust into his face "Health and safety" he grimaced, "You're here about the missing people?", "Ah, yes, that would be us" The Doctor said. The man scanned a pass into the stalls and they opened, The Doctor grabbed Ken's arm, and both of them passed through the gates. "My teeth are itching" The Doctor said, Ken looked surprised, "There's something nasty going on down here, something sinister, something. Ooh! Donuts!" He said, and sped over to a nearby vendor, snatching one out of the case.

There was a train coming in, as The Doctor and Ken walked through the many empty corridors and chambers. The white tiles that coated the floor, ceiling and walls where strange somehow, Ken just couldn't place his finger on it. The train pulled up and The Doctor stepped on, realising where he was just in the nick of time, Ken jumped on. Just as the doors closed he realised that there was no one on the train, why hadn't he noticed that before? As the train sped through the tunnels, The Doctor started inspecting the seats, as if he would find clues on them. Ken turned, and noticed a flickering, green light shining through one of the doors, he walked towards it. Just as he was about to open the door The Doctor shouted "KEN! STEP AWAY FROM THE DOOR!" Ken jumped. The door swung open, and Ken yelled with fright. There was something in there, illuminated by the green glow he could see some kind of machine. Made of silver-like material the thing stepped towards him, metal tendrils uncoiled from it's steel flesh, they zoomed towards Ken, hooking him in, and slowly, he was pulled towards it. "Cybers!" The Doctor shouted, and a strange buzz filled the air. Ken turned his head, and saw The Doctor wielding his sonic screwdriver. He came towards it, and pressed it into the metal-man's eye socket, the thing wailed in a horrible grinding voice, and the metal tendrils unhooked from Ken's clothes. "Cybermen? On a train?" The Doctor asked. Ken was puzzled, "I thought that your sonic thingy didn't work?", "No, it didn't" The Doctor admitted, "But when the Cyberman burst the door open, the power went back on". Ken turned back and looked at the smoking steel body. "Um, Doctor, what is a Cyberman?", "Humans really" The Doctor responded immediately "They replace their organic body parts with metal ones, they call it upgrading. They also install emotional inhibitors into their chests, so the poor soul doesn't wake up and go insane from looking at themselves in a mirror". Ken could guess what an emotional inhibitor was, so he didn't ask. Stepping past the metal corpse The Doctor explored the room beyond. The carriage that they were now in was green, the smell of rotting meat filled the air, and in every seat was... Ken turned and threw up all over the floor. In every seat sat the corpse of a passenger. Ken passed by a shriveled old woman with a handbag by her side. He retched, her skull had been cut open, revealing the brain beneath, although the liquid around it had been drained, the organ was still in there. The Doctor was already at the end, peering through the door. "Every carriage is like this except for the one we started in" He said grimly, he wandered through the aisles looking at all the craniotomized passengers, nodding sadly at every one. Until he came to the third aisle from the front, then he stopped, and laughed"Oh! Oh that's brilliant that is!" he shouted, he waved Ken over, and they both looked at a small green box installed into the side of the wall, "Perception filter!" He grinned, "It's what's making the victims unaware that the train and station is empty!". Just as The Doctor said these last few words a door was ripped off it's hinges, and a crowd of Cybermen stepped out.

"DOCTOR!" The first one shouted "YOU WILL BE DELETED", it stepped towards him, the others did the same and soon The Doctor and Ken were surrounded by them. The Doctor had his hands in the air, his sonic screwdriver back in his pocket. "No! No!" The Doctor yelled"We'll come quietly! Just take us with you!", the cybermen all tilted their heads slightly, and a small buzzing noise filled the air,"They're sharing information, wirelessly" He said. The Cybermen straightened, "PRIORITY 1, CAPTURE THE DOCTOR" The obvious leader of the group screeched, and behind them, two Cybermen grabbed their arms. "W-what are you going to do with us?" Ken whimpered. "CLASSIFIED INFORMATION", The Cyberman shouted. "That is strange" The Doctor said quietly, Ken turned his head slightly, "What's strange?" He whispered, trying not to trip over the various obstacles that lay on the floor as the Cybermen led them on. "These Cybermen are taking orders from something, or someone" He said darkly, "But I distinctly remember destroying Lumic" he looked at Ken "-the old CyberLeader" he explained. "You've met these things before then?" Ken asked, horrified. "Oh yeah" The Doctor said casually "These guys even existed in an alternate dimension" He looked at Ken's confused face and stopped talking. There was silence, save for the whirring and clanking of the Cybermen's moving limbs, they were approaching another carriage, but this time it wasn't glowing green. Yellow light was shining through the door, and The Doctor and Ken winced as they came out of the dim, green carriage and into the bright light. Ken looked around at the blinking lights and heard the soft electronic hum of all the different machines that were crammed into this small space. "Oh... I see" The Doctor said softly, "This is a Cybership. But what's it doing down here?" He muttered the latter to himself, "Unless, unless. Oh! You're converting, this is a conversion!", "You are correct" a deep voice boomed from the front. A chair spun around, revealing the face of the new CyberLeader.

It had a face like a nightmare, with snake-like slits for eyes and a glass casing over the top of its forehead, revealing the brain underneath. "This is a conversion" It said to The Doctor, "We are upgrading the humans to our kind, this will allow us to take over this planet. The Cybermen will rise" All the Cybermen turned to The Doctor and Ken in one, swift movement. "Take the human, he will be upgraded" The CyberLeader droned to it's subjects, and Ken was grabbed from behind by a pair of cold metal hands. Ken yelled as he was dragged into a cupboard, "NO!" The Doctor shouted "He doesn't need to be upgraded" and he forced himself out of the Cyberman's arms, and ripped open Ken's shirt. The Cybermen stopped, and The Doctor stood back. Inside Ken's shirt, there was a metal torso. Ken was a Cyberman. Confusion shrouded Ken's face, "You didn't know then?" The Doctor asked him, "No! I... How did I-" "You've been all along, that's why you wanted to come with me in the post office, you were programed to" "What? No!" Ken said, horrified "Yes" The Doctor responded immediately, "That's why the time's been changing, the enormous amount of power it takes to keep you running drains the power from everything around it. That's why my sonic screwdriver wasn't working, until you opened that door. Your heart stopped for a second, and the power shut down" Ken had tears in his eyes now, "NO" He shouted "I'M NOT A CYBERMAN!". "You are one with us" The CyberLeader said monotonously, "Shut up you" The Doctor said, focusing his gaze on Ken. "You're a Cyberman Ken, you have been ever since they-" He gestured towards the other Cybermen "-first started converting". Ken stood there, dumbfounded at this information. He sagged slightly, and then straightened. "It doesn't matter what I am! I can still stop this!" He clenched his fists, and swung them at the nearest Cyberman's head, as soon as it made contact, it's face crumpled, it looked like a timelapse of a paper bag shriveling up. The Cyberman made a screeching noise, and then turned on The Doctor, he buzzed his screwdriver at it menacingly and it backed off, The Doctor gave it one more buzz and it exploded. The shrapnel bounced around the carriage, but uselessly clattered off of the Cybermen's strengthened steel armour. Ken looked down at his fist, it was mangled beyond recognition, sparks flew up from it and into the air. The CyberLeader stood, it's terrible electronic voice boomed through the carriage, "STOP THE DOCTOR!", all the Cybermen turned and faced The Doctor, one grabbed him, before he was tackled to the floor by Ken, "GO! RUN!" Ken yelled at him. The Doctor slid open the back door and ran through the carriages. Slowly, row by row, the skullcapless passengers were standing up. They flooded the space between the seats quickly and marched after him, like some gruesome parade. The Doctor ran through the many carriages, taking quick looks behind him every few steps, more and more passengers were making their way after him, their faces blank and expressionless. Finally The Doctor reached the last carriage, the one they had started in, he got to the end and realised that there was a locked door there, inside he could see an enormous machine that he figured was the power generator, whipping his sonic out from his pocket he pressed it to the door, it wasn't working. He tried again and again, trying hard not to notice the gathering mob behind him, they were closer now, within an arm's reach. Suddenly the sonic screwdriver switched on, the door unlocked and The Doctor fell inside, he had just enough time to shut the door before the mob closed in on it. He looked around, ignoring the incessant pounding of the horde on the door. He searched frantically for a way to turn it off, humming a Gallifreyan lullaby to himself to cool his nerves. Finally he found a thick cord plugged into the main section of the machine, pulling on it so hard he thought his arms would be ripped out of their sockets, he heard the dense glass on the door smash, the mob had found a way in.

The Doctor pulled and pulled on the cord, he brought out his sonic screwdriver and tried to use that as well, but it was no use, it wouldn't budge. He looked around for something to cut the cord with, noticing a shard of thick glass in one of the zombie-like person's hand. "Thank you!" He said kindly to it, snatching it out of it's hand. He started sawing through the cord, his arm moving back and forth over and over again until he finally made a dent in it. The lights immediately flickered and burst, glass rained down like shrapnel onto The Doctor's face and arms. It took a few moments for him to realise that the pounding had stopped, he turned and by the light of his sonic screwdriver, he could see that the horde had all collapsed. He unlocked the door and looked around the dark corridor. Bodies littered the floor like discarded newspapers. "It's bed time" The Doctor murmured.

Sliding open the door to the driver's carriage The Doctor immediately realised something. The CyberLeader was still alive, it was shifting around in it's silver throne, groaning something over and over again. The Cybermen in the carriage were dead, they all had holes in their faces and bodies where they had shot themselves repeatedly. "Oh I'm so sorry..." The Doctor whispered, realising that deactivating the power generator had meant that all of their emotional inhibitors had also been switched off too, they had seen themselves in the frosted glass and immediately they had gone insane and killed themselves. He wandered through the field of metal corpses, until he reached the CyberLeader, "14 minutes..." It moaned "14 minutes and 37...", and then the dim light in it's eyes went out. The Doctor further examined the carriage, inspecting every inch until he came to a body on the floor, not just another Cyberman, nor another zombie-passenger. This was the body of Ken. He heaved it up off of the metal floor and over one of his shoulders, he waved his sonic over the console and the train came slowly to a grinding halt near another station, he opened the doors and dragged the body through the now-gathering crowds of anxious people, cameras flashed, people shouted and asked questions but The Doctor trudged on, ignoring them all, he'd already lost Amy and Rory, he wouldn't lose this one, he had to get to the TARDIS, he had to...

Ken's eyes snapped open, he was lying on something, something cold something metallic. He sat up and looked around, he half expected to see the Cybermen gathered around him, but he didn't, instead he saw The Doctor, leaning over him and grinning. "Good morning!" He announced joyfully. He grabbed Ken's hand and helped him to his feet, "Where am I?" He asked, "My home! Well, not really my home per say, I mean it's more like my car or my..." He looked at Ken "It's the TARDIS isn't it?" Ken said simply. The Doctor sighed, "Yes, it is" he didn't ask Ken how he had figured that out, The Doctor knew that it was in his CyberCode. He ran his hands over the the TARDIS console and flipped a lever suddenly, a heavy grinding noise filled the air as it faded from existence. "So!" The Doctor declared "So what?" Ken asked, puzzled.

"So all of time and space, everywhere and anywhere. Every star, every planet, every thing that ever was or ever will be. Where do you want to start?"


End file.
